


Death's Companion

by oswhine



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:57:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5326595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oswhine/pseuds/oswhine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever thinks of how lonely Death is. Until she crosses his path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death's Companion

**Author's Note:**

> excuse the cheesy summary

The road to the afterlife is a lonely one. But even lonelier is Death, the man who walks it for all eternity. 

If this dimension, this crack between the living world and the dead, ran by a time structure that makes sense to the living, one would say day after day, he walked that road, quiet, next to the hollow eyed spectres that are the newly dead. And this is why he is called Death: not because he is the king of it, not because he steals people from their lives; but because he has seen more of it than any other being. All those weights of all those deaths have weighed on his shoulders until he is numb. There is no reprieve, no rest from the endless ghosts that haunt him and only him. They never talk, too shocked - too soon, too soon -, too sickened by regret. 

Until her. 

He is waiting for her, as she walks out of the mist, quiet, more quiet than they are. There is nothing he can say anymore. But when he sees her, when she becomes clear, he gasps. 

She is smiling. 

If he had broken that unintentional vow of silence at that moment, he would have said: “Why?” 

But he says nothing, the lines at the corners of his mouths puckering. 

“So,” she says, and it is as if everything has broken in two, that’s how long it’s been since someone has spoken here. “Is this it?” 

What can he say? There is nothing, nothing he can say or do, to make it better. She is dead. That’s it. 

“Do you not speak, skeleton man?” 

But now he is too stunned to speak. A girl, a simple girl, a simple _dead_ girl, talking back to Death. 

“Ah, well, that’s ok then. I have more than enough to say for two people. Is this Hell? Or Heaven? What am I talking about, of course this is neither. Heaven and Hell, constructs of the living to scare people into submission. But this isn’t the end, either, is it? This is a road. It goes somewhere. Are you going to show me the way?” She says it all very quickly, darting from word to word. 

As an answer, he silently held his hand out, gesturing: _onwards_. 

“Right,” she says, setting off at a brisk pace. This is different too. It is usually he who leads, because they usually need it, the comfort of someone guiding them. But now it is he following her, watching as she glances around her, her hair bouncing. 

She turns around then, facing him, walking backwards. “Is this what you do? Just walk ghosts to...wherever we go? Must be pretty lonely.” 

He looks up at that. Slowly, as if taking her all in. 

“You must’ve seen a lot of things. Or not a lot at all. Why you, though? Why you, and no one else?” 

Something he has wondered time and time again. When one of those figures collapses to their knees in the dust, letting out a cry, like an animal in pain but worse, trying to cry but the tears don’t come. They’re all gone. 

“Is this all you do?” 

He inclines his head. Yes. 

“Alone?” 

He looks away. Of course he is almost never alone, there’s always them. Hugging themselves, knowing their moment of shining is over. But he is so different from them. And they never look at him. They never want to face it. Yes. He is alone. 

“How did you die?” The question surprises him just as much as it does her. He’d forgotten what his voice sounded like. 

“Freak accident. What about you? How did you come to be here?” She’s stopped; maybe she is like all the others, just with a different method - buying herself time with words so that the reality may never come true. 

He doesn’t answer. 

“Do you only get to ask the questions? That’s not very fair, is it? I mean, they say that life isn’t fair, it’s even more not fair if the afterlife isn’t fair either. Except I’m not quite there yet, am I?” She looks over her shoulder. “Better make tracks, I don’t know how much time I have here. I expected it to be longer back there, probably works the same way here. What’s after the afterlife?” 

He can’t reply to that. He is stuck between these two realms, and he always will be. 

“I’m Clara, by the way. Clara Oswald. I probably should have mentioned that before, but I don’t think the normal etiquette applies here.” She holds out her hand to him. For him to shake, he realises. He takes it. Her skin is cold, so cold, and his fingers, pressed into her wrist, of course feel no pulse, but it’s still strange; she seems so alive. 

They’re almost there now. And he realises something. Something he’s never thought before. He doesn’t want her to go. It’s foolish, because she’s already there, and there’s no way to save her. But she’s the first to make him feel hope. 

There it is, the other side. A curtain of mist. A mystery. 

She stands, looking up at it. Then turns back to look at him. “What happens to you when I go through?” 

He shrugs. “I stay here, collect the next passenger.” 

“Aha! So you can answer questions.” She becomes somber. He doesn’t want his small existence to make her sad. It’s all he’s ever known. How can he be happy or sad if he has nothing to compare it to? 

“It’s ok, it’s always been this way,” he says, to reassure her. 

“But maybe it doesn’t always have to be.” She takes a step toward him. “What happens, if I don’t go through?” 

“You can’t cheat death, Clara Oswald.” They always go through, in the end. Their curiosity is too powerful, even when their hearts have stopped beating. 

“I’m not trying to. Here, I’m still dead, aren’t I?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, maybe - maybe you don’t have to do this alone. Not anymore.” 

Everything she does, everything she says - it surprises him. “Why?” 

“Because I would stay with you. No one should be alone, especially not the man with the loneliest job in the universe.” Her voice is quiet. She isn’t blabbering anymore. 

“You don’t know what it’s like. If you did, you wouldn’t want to stay.” 

“But _you_ have to. Because without you, they’d have nobody.” 

“Exactly.” 

“But you have nobody.” 

There is silence, as the two of them stare at each other, eye to eye. 

“I can go through there whenever I want, right?” 

“Yes, but - “ 

“You don’t have to be alone any longer. I’m here.” She held out her hand to him, but not for him to shake. This was an offering, and a promise. A promise that she would stay. A promise that she would never go through. 

He took her hand. 

Now two guides walk the road of the dead, hand in hand, proving to all who stumble along its path that there is hope.


End file.
